Streets of Rage 4 100 Yen achievement (Clear Arcade on Hard) tips

First off, if you'r tempted to do this in co-op play you actually may want to do it solo. I actually found it much harder to do co-op. It seems harder to focus on positioning and enemy movements with two people on screen and I tend to play worse (more spammy and focusing on trying to rack up combos). I tried a few times with someone else but in the end I did it solo (took many attempts!). Also with co-op you have to worry about lag and disconnects (one time it happened on stage 6....total bummer).

Few tips for solo arcade play: Dont worry so much about combos. You want to survive and while you need points for extra lives you can't earn points if you're dead. Focus on staying alive and then hit those combos when the opportunities present themselves. Dont combo hunt. Also I found throws were super helpful as a crowd control mechanism and to get some iframes. If you have an enemy clinched from the front and an enemy is behind them and you know they are going to close in and attack wait until they are about to make contact and then vault over your enemy. As you jump to their back you are invulnerable.

I found my best success came with SOR1 Axel/Blaze btw. Pared down mechanics means positioning and fundamentals were the focus and their jab is rangey, powerful and can stun multiple people at once. Also Axel can knock back multiple enemies in a line with his clinch headbutt .

I'm nothing special at this game so if I was able to do this you can too. Just brace yourself for the possibility of having to try again.....and again......and again.....

Good luck!

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon Boss Rush Mode Strategies

Boss 1: Start with Miriam, walk towards him, and then jump towards him and get an attack in the air before you're close. From here, switch to Gebel and do a bunch of jump attacks as the stairs are approaching, you should be able to fit in about 4. Then, jump towards the stairs, and then do a jump without moving so the top step will land under you. From here, do three attacks, then move to the edge of the steps, do 3 more (or 4 if you're risky) and then get off the stairs. From here, run so you don't get hit by the short range fire blast. Then go back near him and keep jump attacking with Gebel. Now the fire rain will come, but just keep attacking until one falls just to the left of you. When this happens, go to where it hit the ground and wait for one to fall where you were standing. After this, just keep jump attacking and you'll win quickly.

Boss 2: Start with Miriam, walk under the middle icicle, and do a slide. This will put you in position to crouch attack many times, so do this until he starts his wind up to go across the screen. When this happens, just jump over it, dont think about getting on an icicle. From here, wait for the 3 blocks waves of 2 blocks each to pass, and then go right to avoid the boss. From here, get in the corner and turn into Gebel. When the boss comes out of her shell, face towards her, crouch, and attack with Gebel many times. The bubbles will come and you'll probably get hit once but it's fine because you did a lot of damage. From here, use Miriam and stay near the middle, using your long whip to jump and attack when you can. All of the bubbles should be gone when she stops, so you can switch to Gebel and kill her quick.

Boss 3: Use Miriam to get to the top of the gold pile and attack him 3 times, then switch to Gebel and get those short range stronger attacks in, and then switch back to Miriam to get more long range attacks in as it goes away. Be Miriam when the hands come, stand near the head, and dodge whichever way you need to because you'll be able to hit him either way when the wave carries you up. Then use Miriam to attack whichever enemies are in your way and repeat until he dies.

Boss 4: Bring the Ice Missile and the Magic Charm subweapons. Begin with Alfted and freeze the top head as soon as the fight starts. This should freeze both heads, so switch to Zangetsu and break the ice on the bottom head with the magic charm, and then slice as much as you can before you have to dodge his bite. Once you dodge the bite, switch to Alfred and refreeze the top head because it should be blinking because it's going to wear off soon. Once you do this, switch back to Zangetsu and finish off the bottom head with another Magic Charm and more slashes. When the bottom head dies, touch the right wall with Gebel and jump attack over and over again to kill the top head with no problems. Then wait on the right platform floating in the air on the far right block for the boss to come back in his second form with Zangetsu. When he is done roaring, throw another magic charm and attack him 3 or 4 times before jumping off the platform to the right. When you are on the lower part, duck and switch to Miriam so that when you jump back after the fire blast it's easier to make it back. When you are back, do another Magic Charm and more slashes and he should die quickly. It may take another round I forget but yeah.

Boss 5: Enter as Gebel and jump attack whenever he flies across the screen to get damage in. Destroy the lightning things when they hit the ground. If he's on the left, be Miriam and slide under the wind to get close and do attacks, and when the wind is gone switch back to Gebel. If he is on the right, then as Gebel get far to the left, jump over him when he comes, and move farther to the right. He will land in front of you and you'll be able to do a bunch of damage without worrying of running into him.
Boss 6: Just bring the lightning and spam it with Alfred and she'll die super fast. Then get to the edge of the screen you can safely get to and just get hit by the suicide blast. If you have full health with Alfred, he'll still live and he's barely out anyway so it's fine lol. I mean you can try dodging it but yeah. If you're trying to go hitless or whatever, you can bring the bat powerup with Gebel and dash attack with the bat through it to dodge it easily, but you won't have enough magic if you use the lightning as I described. An alternate way is to stand on the middle umbrella and use Gebel to attack from there and it shouldn't be too hard. I'd go into more detail there but the lightning just works too perfectly.

Boss 7: Bring the Axe subweapon. Enter with Miriam and get on the blue book platform closest to him. From here, switch to Zangetsu and duck slash until he gets on the wall. From here, get on the far right platform, switch to Miriam, and use the Axe 3 times before getting on whatever platform you need to get on. If it's a close one, you can do another Axe. Jump off with Miriam when he stops dashing around, and duck attack with her long whip. From here, repeat the process and as you're slashing with Zangetsu he should die.

Boss 8: Bring the Demon Essence, Fire Shield, and the three upward knives. Jump attack with Gebel on the first phase until he stops having his hands in whatever position. If they aren't both in the air, switch to Alfred, use the fire sheild quickly, and then switch to Zangetsu. If they are both in the air, then you don't need to use the fire sheild yet but you can if you want to. Move from your current position because he's going to land there, and then use demon essence and attack him a bunch of times. After one more round of this, he should die and it's on to the second phase. Go in the corner and use the upward knives, from the floor, and 2 of them should hit him each time. If you get the yellow moon attack, wait under the boss's feet with Zangetsu and simply jump slash the moons that stop on either side of you. If you get the pink moon attack, get to the left side, switch to Miriam, and jump over them when they come towards you. There may be a way to attack them instead but I don't know it yet. When the spears come, just jump attack with Miriam on the higher platform. Make sure you hit only one eye near the floor as soon as it appears and get on the platform before you get hit. Switch to Miriam when he does his super move to make jumping over the blue things easier, and then get to the edge as soon as that's over to dodge the big red moon. The fight should be over in four or five cycles or something like that.

The Explosions Look Like Pizza: A Mighty No. 9 Review

As you likely know, Mighty No. 9’s development has been controversial and tumultuous. The Kickstarter campaign was a success and fan enthusiasm was high. This was short lived, however, as delays, mixed messaging and awful trailers followed. And now, amidst further controversy, regarding some comments allegedly made by developers of this game, Mighty No. 9 has been released. And it's......you know.

 

The layout of the game is straightforward: There are eight levels, each of which is presided over by one of the “Mighty Numbers” (Robot Masters)- bosses whose abilities you (Beck) can absorb after defeating them. Do this and by the end you're putting together an ever growing list of skills in order to get through constantly evolving, tougher challenges. It's a tried and true formula for a reason: It works and it pushes, challenges and yet empowers the player.

As far as the level design goes, it’s standard stuff: tricky jumps, tight quarters, evolving enemy patterns. Clear, concise, constant difficulty progression. Rewards for exploration (with a few red herrings thrown in for good measure, a la Ninja Gaiden (NES)).

So far so good.

Muramasa Rebirth Review

Muramasa Rebirth is an enhanced port of a 2009 Wii game entitled Muramasa: The Demon Blade which was an excellent 2D side scrolling action role playing game that starred 2 characters: the princess Momohime and Kisuke, a ninja with, wait for it…..amnesia! Yes, amnesia, that old video game trope (I’ll save you the hassle of searching for the story section of this review and just tell you right now that if you are playing this game for the story you’re barking up the wrong proverbial tree).

When you begin the game you are tasked with choosing one of two stories to play through. Momohime’s  or Kisuke’s. Depending upon which choice you make you’ll either be travelling east or west; if you choose Momohime you’ll play as a princess possessed by a vengeful spirit in search of 108 legendary demon blades. Choose Kisuke and you’ll play as a ninja with amnesia……in search of 108 legendary demon blades. The stories both evolve (some might say devolve) from there but frankly, I paid very little attention. What did get my attention, however, was both the audio/visual presentation and the gameplay. The game is simply gorgeous, the music is great and it plays like a dream.

Resident Evil HD Remaster Review

One door leads to three which all lead to three and pretty soon there's a multiverse of doors and each death means going back 30 doors and I get confused.

7/10

My List of Badass Gameboy Advance (GBA) Games- Part Three

Part two can be found HERE

Metroid - Zero Mission

Castlevania- Circle of the Moon

My List of Badass Gameboy Advance (GBA) Games- Part Two

Part One

Medal Of Honor: Infiltrator (seriously)

Ninja Five-O

Pilots Without Planes- A Titanfall Review

Titanfall is an online only shooter that takes place in a future in which humans have colonized outside of Earth but have not yet freed themselves of the shackles of violent confrontation. In a government vs. the people type scenario, diplomacy has failed, as it often does, and a violent revolution has broken out and both sides are utilizing mechanical, weaponized armour called Titans to do aid them in expressing their message of discontent. 

It would not be all that hard to understand why, to an outside observer, Titanfall might strike them as "just another fps." A standard, run of the mill first person affair replete with fast paced  action complemented by a screen covered in rpg-esque numbers and symbols; both of which work to provide immediate and visceral satisfaction and long term addictive behaviour, including the inability to refrain from buying overpriced map packs or a "season pass." Play the game however, and it becomes abundantly clear that Titanfall is more than that. The folks at Respawn Entertainment were clearly aware of the state of the genre and the long term implications of market oversaturation and worked hard to make a shooter that may look like the rest but is actually substantially different (even including addressing the pricing of post release downloadable content).

My List of Badass Gameboy Advance (GBA) Games- Part One

Astro Boy: Omega Factor

Open Letter To Chair Entertainment

Dear Chair,

(never thought I'd ever type that particular sequence of words)

I am writing to you today to ask a favour of you. You see, your company developed one of the absolute best video games last generation (no, sorry, not Undertow). The game to which I am referring is of course Shadow Complex. Shadow Complex was easily the best Xbox Live Arcade game at the time of its release, and in this (not so?) humble gamer's opinion, still is (maybe tied with Geometry Wars and Puzzle Quest but I digress). Let me tell you a little story:

I have been gaming since the late 80's. I grew up on all of the same games you all (hopefully) did. Namely (duh), platformers, shmups, adventure games and beat em ups. You all probably have your favourites from these genres, and many of them will likely differ from mine. However, one thing we definitely have in common is a love for the old school archetypal game designs of the eras bygone, one of the most prominent, and criminally (yes, criminally) underused being the so called “Metroidvania” (“Castleroid” to some, but they are from the wrong side of the tracks, so we can do as the government does and simply ignore them) design. Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night are the two most well known games of this type, but of course there are many more (just not enough). Clearly, you fine people noticed this travesty and decided to capitalize on the oversights of others far less badass than thou and release to the world a brand new game using this game design philosophy.

So, on August 19^th, 2009, you released Shadow Complex and the response from both gamers and critics was overwhelmingly positive. The sales were great (despite that unfortunate little trial version exploit that you wish we would have forgotten (we didn't, but I bought the game, so don't worry)) and Chair Entertainment (now a subsidiary of Epic Games, ching ching!!) was on the map. All well and good, but how do I fit into this story, you ask? Well, I am glad you did. See, to make a longer story long, I, as I stated earlier, have been gaming since the late 80's, and while I still love gaming, I definitely fall into the rose tinted glasses nostalgic old school gamer camp. Games, for the most part at least, just do not satisfy, excite, challenge or engage me the way they used to (with few exceptions) (Bayonetta, anyone?). And then you came along and holy **** I was 12 years old again! 

10 Reasons Why Living Alone Is Awesome

Having gone from living with my parents for over 20 years to living with my fiance-turned wife for several years after that to now living alone for the last 3 years I can honestly say that living alone, at least for me, is by far the best. Here are some reasons why:

1) You can be as loud as you want

Want to play Mass Effect 3 in glorious 7.1 digital surround sound all night with zero guilt or need to consider someone else? Have at it!

2) Do your chores when you want to (or never). 

You can do them at your own convenience and pace, without ever being nagged or criticized.

3) Smokers can smoke in the house all they want if you don't care. 

I have friends who smoke and they were never allowed to smoke in the house before. Now? They can smoke in my basement all they want- this is especially great for them in the winter.

4) Sleep wherever, whenever and always uninterrupted. 

No one will hit you with "when are you getting up" or "why don't you come to bed, it's late?" If it's your day off and you want to sleep for 15 hours....you can!

5) No one but you eats your food. 

No more "who ate my taco? I was saving that!"

6) The temperature is set to EXACTLY your preference at all times. 

And NO ONE complains :) My house is 64 degrees this winter. Saving tons of money on heating and no one is telling me to turn it up because they are cold (meaning of course that I have to be too hot....no thanks).

7) If you play an instrument you can play whenever you want. 

I play the drums and nothing is more glorious than being able to just PLAY when I feel like it.

8) If you missed the lesson on sharing in kindergarten living alone is for you.

That family size box of overly sugary, diabetes inducing cereal? All mine, mine, mine!

9) Come and go as you please. 

Go out whenever you want and have no one to answer to (or ask).

10) Have people over anytime you want. 

There's never a time where you have to "check" with someone else. I can have an impromptu jam session with a guitarist friend, something that would have been nearly impossible before.

Living alone isn't for everyone, but for people like me, it's GREAT. Everyone should at least try it once in their lives.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus 2- Ninja Race Mode Tips

So I have been playing a bit of the Ninja Race mode in Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus 2 on the Vita and I thought I would share some tips for this super fun, challenging mode. Note: I have been playing as Ryu, so these tips are (mostly) character specific.

-Lunar Staff is obtained after beating Chapter 1 in the story mode- do this first.

-The Lunar features quick combo kills using weak, weak, strong. This is much faster than square, square, triangle, shuriken cancel, triangle with the dragon sword.

-The Lunar is also fantastic for crowd control, unlike the DS. Standing neutral strong, either stand alone or chained into a combo is good, as is the standard weak, weak, weak, strong strong. A good one for quick limb detachments is chains starting with towards and square. This is a poke with range and power and like the other combos mentioned above it seems to grant some crowd protection in the same way that VF combo strings do. The dragon sword does not carry this advantage.

-The Dragon Sword does have the flying swallow, but it whiffs too much sometimes and therefore wastes too much time. There's no whiffing with the Lunar staff.

-Minimize ET/UT usage. Keep it to the purple essence or health if you don't need it. You'll definitely want to avoid using the green essence for them as green grants time bonuses. The white essence grants speed and power bonuses so try not to utilize that for ET's/UT's either, unless you're at max speed/power or you're in trouble.

-I experimented with both avoiding fights and taking them all on and what seemed to work best for me was a combination of the two- run until you group enemies together at a point where you're forced to fight and kill them as fast as you can. You'll get a feel for the best spots to do this as you try the course over after failing (unless you're amazing and do it in one go) but off the top of my head, I skip the first three regular ninjas and have them follow me, along with the first 2 dogs, into the bridge area where you're forced to fight the spider ninja. Then I grouped together the next batch with the big fight at the area before the archer section.

-Speaking of the archers, DO NOT BOTHER WITH THEM. Major time waster. Either fight the guys below while dodging arrows or take them all with you to the underground passage and kill them in close quarters (if you get far enough ahead you can no essence charge a UT, or at least an ET to soften them up (if you want).

-Plan on failing several times while you're learning the route(s) and strategy(ies). Unless of course you're god tier. At this point in my life I'm human tier, so it took me a good 10 tries or so to figure it all out. The time constraints are rough and leave little room for error. The most time I can recall having on the clock at once was somewhere around 2:40.

-Race 01: If you get to the first boss fight with less than 40 seconds on the clock restart. When I beat the course I believe I got to him with 1:10 or so left.

That's all I can remember atm.

Blast From The Past: Syko Shadow's 2010 Gaming Shout-Outs

Note: While I work on some new ideas for posts and formulate them into barely coherent and publically shared entities I thought I would treat you to an explosive blast from the past courtesy of my friend SykoShadow. 

Enjoy!

Well, 2010 has been gone for a long time now, so I think it's time I finally took a good look back at last year in gaming. I don't do award show-type crap, instead what I try to do is simply give recognition to as many stand-out games as possible, whether they stand out in a positive or negative light, unlike an award show which only congratulates the winner of each generic fucking category and forgets the runner-ups entirely.

There's been quite a few games out this year, good ones and bad ones, amazing works of art and horrendous pieces of horse dick. So let's get down to business, time to give some shout-outs to the best and worst of 2010!

Meet BoxMan, a new villain from the upcoming The Evil Within

Deconstructing the FPS AKA Boring Horizontal Whack a Mole

It is my contention that fps games are, at their core, both boring and mind numbingly simplistic. While there are a variety of skills at play during, for example, an online game of Call of Duty (was I going to use any other game/series for my example?) the one that comprises more than 50% of the player's actions is the act of aiming. Trying to line up either your reticule or your iron sights with the current (or future, in the case of those longer distance shots that require you to lead the target) location of your intended target is, as anyone who has experience with the genre will tell you, a large portion of the player's actions during any given game. Would it be unreasonable for me to state that this large portion is somewhere over 50% of the players actions during gameplay?

No, I say? Okay then, I answered my own question and I have to say I agree with myself (aren't one way conversations great for being right?). It's not an exaggeration to say that more than half of the actions you take while playing your typical online fps consist of aiming your weapon at various targets. Well, what does aiming at a target entail and why am I harping on this? Let's deconstruct: If you strip away the visual and auditory feedback mechanisms in place what do you get at its core? Fundamentally, you have periods of navigating through an enclosed environment punctuated with bursts of moving a cursor around the screen and trying to time the pull of a trigger with the placement of the cursor over the avatar of the intended target.

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox, 2004) Was Ahead Of Its Time

Note: I use 'hack n slash' to describe the genre of games to which titles such as Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry and Bayonetta belong. I recognize that to many, the term hack n slash calls to mind games like Diablo and Champions of Norrath while games like Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden would be considered third person action games. Just remember that when I say hack n slash I mean Ninja Gaiden, not Diablo.

'Ahead of its time' is a phrase with which I am intimately familiar, having said it myself many times in my life (usually in reference to a video game or a technical death metal album I am raving about at any given time). It is also a phrase with which I take issue, as the concept of something being ahead of its time implies that it is possible for something to exist before it should exist, which seems patently absurd, especially when stated so clearly. If something comes to exist at a moment in time, what other time could there be, aside from the one in question, at which the thing in question should exist and who determines that? Clearly the idea of something being ahead of its time is a romanticized and hyperbolic one. That being said, I am prone to hyperbole and romanticism and so I am going to make the claim that Ninja Gaiden (Xbox, 2004) was ahead of its time. If it is at all possible for something to be so, Ninja Gaiden is it.

At the time of the game's release, the hack n slash genre was well established, but certainly not to the degree to which it is today. Nor was it nearly as popular as it is now. God of War had not yet released. Devil May Cry 3, arguably the best in the series and the title that really elevated both the Devil May Cry series and the hack n slash genre as a whole in terms of mainstream popularity (as well as acting as redemption after the dud that was Devil May Cry 2) had also not yet been released. The first title in the series was, at the time, widely considered to be the best of the genre, and probably rightfully so. At the time, Capcom really innovated and elevated the genre with the release of the original Devil May Cry.

And then in 2004, a reboot of the classic 8 bit Ninja Gaiden series developed by Team Ninja, the development studio behind the Dead or Alive fighting game franchise, was released and the genre was elevated to dizzying new heights (see, there's that aforementioned tendency to hyperbole).

The first thing that really stood out upon first playing the game was how smooth, fluid and fast everything was. The game ran at a blistering 60 fps, which, if I am not mistaken, was a first for the genre, at least on consoles. It felt incredibly smooth, fast and responsive, and this was felt immediately after beginning to play. The controls were tight and the main character, Ryu Hayabusa, was incredibly agile. The options in terms of mobility were staggering. You could run up and along walls, hop back and forth between them to get to high places in seconds (known within the series as "bird flipping") jump on enemy heads and then launch yourself off of them, either once or multiple times in succession, allowing for the possibility of getting past a group of enemies by simply traversing over them as though they were a part of the flooring. Ryu could also roll dodge and perform a move known as the "Flying Swallow" which is a mid air flying sword thrust which covers great distances instantaneously and can decapitate multiple enemies in a single motion.

Hmmmm....three guys all shooting at me, what do I- oh, that takes care of that then!

Totally unrelated to the feel of the game, but equally noticeable upon first playing it was the fact that the game was absolutely stunning. Upon release it was one of the best looking Xbox games. Arguably even the best, period. This makes the fact that it ran at 60 fps all the more impressive since developers typically have to sacrifice either visual fidelity or the framerate when developing console games. The best looking games, especially during the sixth video game generation, were typically 30 fps. The few games that did run at a higher framerate were not typically the most technically impressive games from a visual standpoint. Ninja Gaiden was a top tier game in terms of visuals and it also somehow ran at 60 fps. The game was an absolute technical marvel and it was a dream to play while being a beauty to behold.

Keep Faith Alive, a.k.a. These Games Need Sequels!

By Syko Shadow

For the past month or so, there has been some news regarding one of my favorite games of this generation, Mirror's Edge. Apparently, development of a sequel has been pushed to the side by Electronic Arts so that the developer DICE can focus on making a game to compete with Call of Duty, presumably Battlefield 3.

Fuck that, I want my sexy free-running goddess, I do NOT want another patriotic Aryan poster boy fightin' the dang Ruskies for the old Stars and Stripes! American military videogames weren't fun the first time around, now we've got more interactive advertisements for the U.S. Army than I can count, and on top of that DICE is tossing aside a sequel to one of the most unique games on today's consoles to continue this stream of semper fi bullshit.

You know, Mirror's Edge is far from the first original IP I've grown to love, yet others look down on, and due to that the aspects of a sequel are... less than hopeful. With that in mind, I decided to write about my most desired sequels I need, but may never get.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's....a Pilot? Pilots Without Planes- A Titanfall Review

Titanfall is an online only shooter that takes place in a future in which humans have colonized outside of Earth but have not yet freed themselves of the shackles of violent confrontation. In a government vs. the people type scenario, diplomacy has failed, as it often does, and a violent revolution has broken out and both sides are utilizing mechanical, weaponized armour called Titans to do aid them in expressing their message of discontent. 

It would not be all that hard to understand why, to an outside observer, Titanfall might strike them as "just another fps." A standard, run of the mill first person affair replete with fast paced  action complemented by a screen covered in rpg-esque numbers and symbols; both of which work to provide immediate and visceral satisfaction and long term addictive behaviour, including the inability to refrain from buying overpriced map packs or a "season pass." Play the game however, and it becomes abundantly clear that Titanfall is more than that. The folks at Respawn Entertainment were clearly aware of the state of the genre and the long term implications of market oversaturation and worked hard to make a shooter that may look like the rest but is actually substantially different (even including addressing the pricing of post release downloadable content).

Fable Anniversary Review- Saving The World, One Chicken Punt At A Time

You want to pass through me and gorge yourself on my treasures? Get fat first. That is the message delivered to you by one of Fable Anniversary's so called 'Demon Doors,' magical doors created long before the time during which the game takes place, made to conceal the existence of various treasures. Approach the door in Barrow Fields and this is the message with which you are met:

"Oh no, not again. Another bony adventurer seeking to plunder my riches. I'm not interested in your meager frame. Get some meat on you! I want beefy! Blubbery! Plump! Porcine! Stop being a slave to public perception, and treat yourself. Pies, meat, beer, anything; but lots of it! Eat yourself large, and you'll be welcome here!"

If You Liked The Original, Don't Overlook Fable Anniversary

Update: REVIEW now available

Fable Anniversary, an HD remake of Lionhead's now ten year old Xbox original adventure/rpg hybrid Fable will be available for purchase both at retail and online this Tuesday (at least in North America) for $39.99. The question you may be asking yourself is, is it worth the asking price? Considering the fact that this is a remake of an already existing game, that question seems entirely warranted and valid. Let's consider the facts and perhaps together we will answer this question for you.

The first thing anyone who has played the original will notice upon first seeing Fable Anniversary in action is of course the updated visual fidelity. Lionhead, tasked with bringing Fable to the modern era, utilized the Unreal 3 engine and employed 100 artists with the aim of totally redoing the textures, lighting and special effects. Widescreen support was added, a very important upgrade since the original Fable only supported a 4:3 aspect ratio. This might not sound like much in 2014 but pop in the original Fable and you'll be met with black bars on both sides of the image, which are now thankfully removed as the native aspect ratio has been updated to the industry standard, widescreen enabled 16:9.

In addition to the aforementioned textures and lighting, draw distances were improved, as were the particle effects, shadows and water effects. All of this has resulted in a much prettier version of the original game. It still retains the visual style and flair of the original while updating the visual offerings to a level more suitable for consumption in the modern era.

One of the strengths of the original game was the sound, especially the musical score. At the time, this high point was held back by audio compression as well as being limited to two channel (stereo) audio. Fast forward ten years and the original score that was so beloved by the fans is not only still intact but allowed to shine, freed from the chains of compressed, two channel audio. For the first time, fans of the Fable will be able to play the game they love with no limits placed on the aural experience. Multi channel surround sound and uncompressed audio are now a part of the Fable experience.